This invention relates to an image-forming apparatus and more particularly to an image-forming apparatus fitted with a document-feeding device which is designed to automatically place on a prescribed spot of a document-supporting plate a document whose image is to be formed.
A copying apparatus may be described as an image-forming apparatus which reads information on a document and records the information on a recording medium as an image. A copying apparatus fitted with a document-feeding device comprises a document-supporting plate for holding a document whose image is to be formed at a prescribed spot on the table, and a document-feeding device which is designed to automatically transport a received document to the prescribed spot. Such a document-feeding device can successively transport a plurality of documents supplied thereto to the prescribed spot and drawout successively the copied documents and therefore the feeding device is useful in copying a large number of documents at a high speed. When, however, copying an extremely thin and easily breakable document or a specified page from, for example, a book, the conventional practice is to manually set the thin document or page at the prescribed spot on the document-supporting plate. With the conventional copying apparatus arranged as described above, sometimes the extremely thin and easily breakable document is manually set on the prescribed spot and then a new document is fed to the prescribed spot by the document-feeding device without removing the manually set document. In such case, the conventional copying apparatus is accompanied with the drawbacks that while the preceding manually set document still remains on a prescribed position of the document-supporting plate, a succeeding document is brought to the same prescribed spot by means of the feeding device. Consequently, both documents are damaged by their collision. Such document damage should be prevented by any means possible.